Hair-Raising Hotel

A further installment of my 'multi-strand' project. Please bear in mind once more that the names of the characters are likely to change and that this is an early draft

Submitted:Nov 26, 2012
Reads: 55
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The Majestic Hotel stood in
all its glory near the railway station in a somewhat run-down
street in a poor area of the town. It was anything but
'Majestic', although it might have been when it had been built in
the heyday of King Edward VII. For a start, the paint was
peeling, the gutters hung on for dear life and threatened to fall
onto the head of any innocent passer-by who happened to walk near
to the building. In some areas they were rusting so badly and
hanging off their supports dangerously. Whenever it rained, the
downpour from the gutters gushed into the street in a constant
stream. The window-frames were rotting badly, and none of the
doors seemed to fit properly due to the damp. On the roof, plants
grew out of the spaces in the tiles, where some had slipped,
others looking near the point of actually falling off. In other
words, this wasn't the sort of place you'd automatically be drawn
to if you were in need of a room for the night, or even a place
to visit for a quiet evening's drink and something to eat.

Walk up the steps and in
through the front entrance and you'd be greeted by a receptionist
called Melanie who wasn't entirely concentrating on the job she
was paid to do. She would be reading a magazine while sitting at
her post, propped up on a shelf underneath the counter. She
occasionally glanced at her mobile phone which she kept in her
handbag, which was itself hanging on the back of the door
connecting the reception area to the office. She was
half-expecting a text message from her boyfriend, inviting her
out for the evening, or possibly, however remote, some form of
communication from an agency she had recently signed up with for
a modelling job. Hotel receptionist was merely a means to an end
to her, just another way of earning an honest crust, a way of
paying her bills. She had a dream of one day becoming a super
model and strutting her stuff along the catwalks of Paris, London
or New York. But until that moment came, she would have to endure
the indignities of dealing with the riff-raff who drifted in and
out of the hotel and bored silly with their endless complaints
about dripping taps, lumpy mattresses and inedible food which
seemed to make up the vast percentage of her time working behind
the reception desk.

Her boyfriend, Eddie, was a
tolerant soul. He put up with her endless need to spend money on
clothes, make-up and the latest gadget. He claimed to have
contacts in the music and media world, but at the moment he was
busily helping with the opening of a nightclub, but as he was on
the fringes of the entertainment world and had a vast number of
contacts, she knew that he would be able to help her become
either an actress or model. She was absolutely determined to get
her foot on the bottom rung of the ladder that she hoped would
lead to fame and fortune.

As she sat and read her
magazine, which carried articles about the lives and loves of
celebrities, her eye was caught, if only for a brief moment, by
the sight of a couple of men in the street through the glass of
the hotel's front door. They were dressed neatly in smart suits
and carried clipboards in their hands. They stood together on the
opposite pavement and were talking together, and then appeared to
be looking at the hotel. One was pointing at some feature or
other of the building, and then wrote something on his clipboard
with a pen. One of them had a briefcase and opened it, and
supported it by placing it on top of a post-box that stood on the
corner of the street. He fished out a sheaf of papers, one bundle
of which he handed to his accomplice. They continued to chat for
a couple of minutes, and then strode off in the direction of the
town centre.

Melanie sat and continued to
read her copy of 'Hello'. She flicked the pages over slowly. Her
concentration wandered as her eyes met those of some celebrity
hunk who was posing beside his swimming pool in Beverly Hills.
Her mind was elsewhere when she turned the page to behold a
two-page spread on the home of some elegantly dressed actress.
What, she thought to herself, were those two men up to? Why were
they eyeing up the Majestic Hotel? Was there something the owners
of the rotting pile weren't telling their staff? She was itching
to know, and even more so, itching to tell the other members of
staff what she had just witnessed.

The ancient lift descended
from the floors above, bringing with it a couple in there
sixties. They approached the reception desk. The wife, a
formidable-looking woman who wore a chain store two-piece outfit
in crimson-and-black polyester and glared at Melanie through a
pair of rimless glasses, while her husband cowered several paces
behind.

"It's
no good, Geoffrey! I insist on complaining!"

"If you must, my dear."

"Of course I must. I want
service and I expect to get it!"

Melanie looked up from her
magazine.

"Yes madam. How can I
help?"

"It was
last night. We came in late and wanted something to eat. We rang
room service. I'd hardly call it SERVICE, but never mind. We were
hungry, so we wanted to order a sandwich, nothing out of the
ordinary. This is a hotel, after all. Quite straightforward, I'd
say, wouldn't you, Geoffrey?"

"Yes dear," said her husband,
very keen to agree with her.

"What did we get, when they
bothered to answer the phone? They didn't seem to understand a
word I said. They said it was far too late to order food and that
the kitchen was closed for the night."

"Did you get your sandwich?"
ventured Melanie.

"It took over an hour to
arrive. And then the bread was dry and there was far too much
mustard."

"Do you wish to make a formal
complaint?"

"Why, yes, of course. It
completely spoilt our weekend!"

"I wouldn't say that," said
her husband, sheepishly.

"Geoffrey! We've spent good
money. I expect better service. The man was rude!"

"I'm sorry madam. If you'd
just fill in one of our complaint forms, then we can look into
your complaint. It's our procedure."

She carried a sizeable
handbag, which, from looking at it, one would suppose it
contained half the contents of a department store. She swung it
onto the reception desk in one almighty movement, and plonked it
down hard immediately in front of Emily. The woman opened the
handbag, and with much deliberation and effort thrust her hand
inside and delved about for a good half-minute. She took out
several items, a handkerchief, a set of car keys, and an address
book.

"Where's my glasses case? I
can't find it. Oh, here it is!" she drew out the case, covered in
fake crocodile skin, and clicked it open. She took out the small
cleaning cloth from inside the case and then took off her
glasses, and glaring at Emily, proceeded to clean the glasses as
agitatedly. When she had cleaned them as thoroughly as possible,
she placed them back on her nose, returned the cloth to the
glasses case, closed the case with a snap and put it back in her
handbag. She then lent on the counter and stared directly at
Emily.

"The complaint form, madam!"
said Emily, producing a blank card from a filing cabinet behind
the reception desk, and handing it over to the, by now, seething
guest, who snatched it sharply from Emily's hand.

"If you care to fill it in and
hand it back we can then investigate your complaint."

"Geoffrey, let's fill it in
over breakfast!" said the woman, and they ambled off into the
restaurant.

Geoffrey didn't look the sort
of man who'd put up any sort of fight, particularly with his
wife, as he was small and pasty faced with a thin moustache. He
was all for a quiet life, so he agreed wholeheartedly with
everything she said. Infact, he looked the sort of man who'd got
to his time of life and given up all efforts with regards arguing
with her or to have any sort of opinion of his own on
anything.

Melanie breathed a sigh of
relief as the couple left the reception desk and returned to her
copy of "Hello."

It was at this point that
there was the sound of a muffled mobile ring tone in the office.
Melanie stepped deftly through the door to quickly grab her
handbag, find her mobile and silence the thing. She remained in
the office, but kept an eye on the reception desk, just in case
another guest needed her assistance.

"Hello," she whispered into
the mobile.

"Hi, Mel! It's me, Eddie." She
hated being called Mel, but just this once she let it
pass.

"Didn't I tell you NOT to ring
me? I'll get into trouble if I'm seen using my mobile. What do
you want?"

"You're off this weekend,
aren't you?"

"Yes, thank goodness."

"How do you fancy a trip to
Devon?"

Sounds great to me. Anything to get away from this mouldy old
hotel. What's going on there?"

"I've got to deliver a sofa
for a friend of a friend. As a sort of favour."

"O.K. I can't talk anymore. I
must get back to work. You can tell me more about it when I see
you this evening when I've finished work.

"O.K. Bye."

She snapped the mobile shut
and put it back in her handbag and returned to the reception
desk.